Connecticut western news., 1887-09-07
RINGS IN TREES.
What Measurements of Forest
 Growth Have Disclosed.
The Rings Declared Not a True
 Test of Trees Life.

The Rings Declared Not a True
 Test of Trees Life.
 Every day some pet theory, long held and honestly venerated, is being demol- ished and sent to the limbo of myth with Tells apple, Washington's cherry tree and other old acquaintances. Now the age rings in trees have to suffer limboni- zation, if the word may be allowed. MT. R. w. Furras, an agent of the United States Forestry Department, who has given much attention to the age of a tree as indicated by rings, as we'll as to the period H which trees of different species stop growing and that at which the wood is at it's best, has reached some con- clusions of general interest. He says:
 "Concentric or annual rings, which were once accepted as good legal evi- dence, fail, except where climate, soil, temperature, humidity and all other sur roundihgs are regular and we'll balanced. Otherwise, they arc mere guesswork. The only region within my knowledge where either rings or measurements were reliable indications are in the secluded, even and regularly tempered valleys of the Southern Pacific coast"
 Annual measurements of white elm, catalpa, soft maple, sycamore, pig nick
 ory, cotton wood, chestnut, box elder, honey locust, coffee tree, burr and white oak, black walnut, osage orange, white pine, red cedar, mulberry and yellow willow (nineteen species), made in south eastern Nebraska, show that 'tannual growth is very irregular, sometimes scarcely perceptible and again quite | large,' and this he attributes to the diff ference in seasons. As trees increase in age inner rings decrease in size, some times' almost disappearing. Diminished rate in growth after certain age is a rule. Of four great beeches mentioned in London, there were three, each about seventeen feet in girth, whose ages were respectively 60, 102 and 200 years. MT. Furras found twelve rings in black locust six years old, twenty-one rings in a shell bark hickory of twelve years, ten rings in pig hickory of six years, eleven rings in wild crabapple of five years, and only twenty rings in chest nut oak of twenty four years. An Amer ican chestnut of only four years had nine rings, while a peach of eight years had only five rings.
 Dr.. A M. Childs, resident of Ne braska from 1854 to 1882, careful ob- server for the Smithsonian Institution,
 who counted rings on some soft naples
 eleven years two months old, found on one side of the heart of one of them
 forty rings, and not less than thirty five anywhere, which were quite distinct
 when tho wood was green, but after it had been seasoned only twenty-four
 rings could be distinguished Another
 expert says that all our Northern hard
 woods make many rings a year, some times as many as twelve, but as the last
 set of cells in a years growth are very
 small and the first very large, the annual
 growth can always be determined, cx- cept when from local causes there is any particular year little or no cell growth.
 This may give large number on one side. Upon the Pacific coast of North America trees do not reach the point where they stop growing nearly as early as those of the Atlantic coast Two ? hundred years is nearly the greatest age { attained on the eastern side of the con- tinent by trees that retain thei1 vigor, while 800 years is the case of several species on the Western coast, and one writer is con
 confident that a sequoia which wa:
 measured was not less that 2376 years
 old. At Wrangel, western hemlock six feet in diameter at the stump, wa! four feet in diameter 132 feet further ur the trunk and its rings showed 432 years But in the old Bartram Garden, neal Philadelphia, not more than 15O years OlQ, alnOSC all tue trees are on the uOWI grade. The Quercus Robar, England! pride, which at home is said to live 1OO( y years, has grown to full size and died il ( this garden, and the foreign spruces art Q following suit. Silver frs planted il . 1900 arc decaying. The great differ V ence in the longevity of trees upon tn f western and eastern coasts-of continent n in the Northern Hemisphere seems to b n due to the walm, moist air carried D. l. strong and permanent ocean current
 from the tropics northeasterly, in bot
 the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, whicl
 make the climate both moist and equabl ,- in high attitudes. In Sitka as much a @ 100 inches of rain have falle # in year, and the harbor is rarely frozel fl enough to hinder the passage of boats 't In some winters scarcely any ice is seen n .--[ Lumber World.
 Cnnsidarata Mandicant